


Tequila Sunrise

by WhoGroovesOn



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, It's Not Crack I Swear, Kidnapping, Light Angst, M/M, Makeup Sex, Mind Sex, Mollisian, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Shapeshifting, Torture, Touchy-Feely, alien!John, alien!lock, did I mention that Sherlock and John are aliens?, human!Lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-03 03:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10234472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoGroovesOn/pseuds/WhoGroovesOn
Summary: John Watson was a lovely shade of bright scarlet usually, a very modest Mollisian. John hadn’t even known what Sherlock was up to until Lestrade had called. John was now seething in the car, turning a slightly darker shade of burgundy, waiting for his honey lump of a mate to explain why breaking and entering had been a perfectly reasonable idea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to PipMer for beta reading this fic.

“Sherlock! For the love of God you can’t do things like this!” Lestrade shouted at what to any passers by looked like a massive golden yellow mound of translucent jelly. The mass shook a little bit at the yelling and an orifice that looked like a mouth formed at its top, within the mass bubbles and further structures formed beneath it and the mouth inhaled.

“I may not appear to have ears Lestrade but I can still hear you, you don’t need to shout,” a baritone voice said from the mouth, as the jelly blob began to stretch upwards.

“That’s not the damn point Sherlock!” He yelled anyway as the golden mass began to take a shape. A head emerged, followed by torso, two arms and two legs until a rough approximation of a tall lanky man stood before him. 

Lestrade was used to seeing Mollisians shapeshifting, and from the reactions of the police working around them, so were they. So were most humans really; the Mollisians, of which Sherlock was one, had been around on Earth long enough now that interaction with them was old hat to most people. Even as Lestrade watched him Sherlock’s features refined, high cheekbones, eyelids with eyeballs, though no pupils or irises, sort of sweeping shapes to delineate where hair would be rather than just presenting a bald head, and a nose with nostrils. Most Mollisians in public, at minimum, attempted this level of human form, mostly for the comfort of their human neighbors than anything else. Lestrade and most of the humans in Sherlock’s fairly small sphere were simply happy he didn’t decide to roam about as something more horrific, like a giant spider, or more scandalous, like becoming overly detailed and wandering around with a set of impressively large human shaped genitals hanging out.

“Then what is the ‘damn point’ Lestrade?” Sherlock replied, doing the mildly freaky trick of parroting Lestrade’s words back at him with his own voice.

“The point is you nearly caused an incident by breaking into that house the way you did!” Lestrade said, pointing up at the rather luxurious looking home they stood in front of. 

“The widow was hiding evidence,” Sherlock stated simply, blank yellow eyeballs rolling as he affected a sigh. He didn’t need to breathe, but the mannerism had been picked up after living around humans for years.

“That doesn’t give you the right to squeeze under her door and scare her half to death hiding under her kitchen sink!” Lestrade replied. “Think about someone other than yourself for once. There are already groups of people who want your lot chipped and locked away from us humans because they fear you’ll do exactly what you just did.” He tried to reason with the blankly listening face in front of him.

“You mean solving a murder?” Sherlock said, nonexistent eyebrows rising.

“I mean breaking and entering,” Lestrade hissed, “you know as well as I do what those extreme whackjobs think of you lot. I know you read all of the newspapers and gossip rags. Remember the story a couple months ago? Group got ahold of that poor young Mollisian, tortured them with liquid nitrogen and then smashed them to bits. I don’t want that to be you, Sherlock; think about Mycroft, think about John.” He pleaded. Mentioning John got a reaction, albeit a small one. His head turned to look for John who sat waiting for Sherlock in the back seat of Lestrade’s police car. 

John was a lovely shade of bright scarlet usually, and a very modest Mollisian, opting to wear clothes on top of his humanoid shape when out and about. John hadn’t even known what Sherlock was up to until Lestrade had called. He was now seething in the car turning a slightly darker shade and losing most of his form detail as he waited for his mate.

Sherlock seemed to realize how much he’d royally screwed up as he watched John, his color paling slightly. “She’s not just hiding evidence, she’s hiding a body somewhere on the premises as well, found a man’s gardening service uniform, accidental death possibly, unlikely though, going by the bruising on her wrist.” Sherlock began rattling off dully, his entire golden form drooping as though he were melting just from looking at John’s anger.

Before Lestrade even had time to respond, Sherlock had started wandering towards his now nearly brick red mate, leaving Lestrade to stare somewhat confusedly after his yellow backside. Sherlock popped the door open and slid in next to John, who didn’t turn his head to look at him, his face holding an upset pout. 

“John,” Sherlock began quietly, sliding a little closer to him across the seat.

“Don’t start that crocodile tears act with me Sherlock,” John said, shifting further away. “You know what you did, and you got caught too.” 

“But, John,” Sherlock started trying to think of a way to get his life mate to not be distant with him. Sherlock reached out an appendage, devolved down in detail from a hand, to touch John’s clothed arm.

John’s reaction was instant. His human form shuddered and instantly squashed up against the door, becoming barely above a blob squeezed into human clothes as he sought no further physical contact with his mate. Sherlock backed away, realizing he was only angering John further by trying to initiate a touch. The pair sat quietly in the back seat of the car for a long while, Sherlock scooting back over towards his door and staying there, allowing his features to dissolve slightly and pooling on the seat. John separated himself from the door once more when Sherlock backed off, regaining something of a human shape even though he was nearly vibrating, raised irritated spikes covering his skin.

Eventually Lestrade did get in the driver’s seat and start the car. “I’m going to take you two home now,” he said. “Don’t think we’re done talking about this Sherlock,” he added looking in the rear view mirror back at the Mollisian pair in the back. He was almost certain Sherlock would be getting a visit from Mycroft in the near future, and Lestrade was sure he’d hear about it when it happened as was so often the case when the brothers clashed.

The drive back to their flat was just as quiet, John staying grumpily leaned against his car door while Sherlock sat and tried not to completely lose his form and pool on the seat beside him. A black car sat at the kerb outside 221B and just the sight of it made Lestrade mutter a quiet, “oh no”. He had thought Mycroft would wait a bit to come lay into Sherlock. When he parked John was the first one out of the car, diving out and through the front door. The champagne pink form of Mrs Hudson appeared peeking around the door jamb as Sherlock, followed closely by Lestrade, approached. 

“Mycroft’s upstairs, dear, said he had a matter to talk with you about,” she said quietly, barely forming up out of her normally blob-like state to talk with them as she slid back into her rooms, looking nervous about the elder Holmes upstairs. 

Sherlock led the way up, and sure enough there was Mycroft, standing near the window next to their sofa, all done up in an immaculate suit. His humanoid form was almost flawless despite the obvious annoyance at Sherlock, shown by a darkening of color similar to John’s only with Mycroft it turned his normally indigo coloration to something closer to blackcurrant jam.

John had charged up the stairs ahead of them and was in the kitchen, stripping himself of his clothes now that he was in the confines of his own home and deforming into his natural state, not caring if Lestrade saw. He set about angrily making tea, tendrils and limbs extending off of his primary mass to slam down a full kettle to boil while reaching for the tea bags and mugs.

“First of all, brother mine, you are confined to this house until further notice,” Mycroft began, a small number of spines of annoyance springing up along his head as he spoke before smoothing into his skin again. To a human like Lestrade the sight of it reminded him of a ferrofluid sculpture he’d seen on the internet; he had shown it to Mycroft before and his alien partner’s skin briefly had prickled in a wave across his entire form before settling again as he watched the moving magnetic liquid. If Lestrade could liken it to anything it had been like watching a cat react to a mirror, if only for a moment.

Sherlock, with a full body eyeroll, began to rapidly devolve from his humanoid form as well, slumping across the room towards his ‘chair’ in front of the fireplace. If it could be called a chair, it was more like a large, soft, round, cushion with a raised bit on the back that sat on the floor, like the cushion to a papasan chair only thicker. John had a similar one that sat across from Sherlock’s, well worn in damask fabric in contrast to Sherlock’s grey leather. Sherlock flopped down into it, pooling into his natural large lump of a form, small spikes rippling across his surface in a shivery wave. 

“Sherlock, just listen to your brother for once,” Lestrade pled, watching Mycroft stalk towards Sherlock and come to stand over him. Mycroft was a master at human facial expressions; Lestrade had met a good number of Mollisians that barely even put in the effort to use their humanoid face to express anything, if they did at all. Mycroft however put on a flawless performance, and that thought wasn’t just because Lestrade was his partner. If it weren’t for his naturally translucent skin and indigo color he’d pass for human easily. Even as he stood over Sherlock his face was held in a deeply unhappy expression: his lips thinned, his nostrils flared as though there was really breath moving through them, his whole posture spoke of human seething, his skin held in check from belying the alien signs of the same emotion beyond its darkening color. 

A mouth formed again on Sherlock’s top facing towards Mycroft. “Sod off, Mycroft,” it said grumpily. A finger of a tentacle shot out from Mycroft’s sleeve and viciously stabbed into Sherlock’s mass. 

The reaction was instantaneous. Sherlock’s whole form leapt away, slinking over the back of his chair and mashing himself up against the window, stretching up the wall to put distance between Mycroft and his appendages. The spot Mycroft had stabbed had changed color slightly, turning from Sherlock’s normal golden yellow to a dull muddy brown. Lestrade watched as Sherlock’s whole form arched away, irritated spines rising high across his body like a cat, hissing and spitting angrily without all the noise.

“Now I have your attention,” Mycroft said eyes narrowing as Sherlock held the pose, looking like an abstract sculpture made of honey in the window. “You will stay in this flat. Tantrum and sulk all you want, but you will not be so much as seen by the public’s eye until I declare it so. Is that understood?” He took a step closer, tendrils slipping forth from his jacket cuffs threatening to prod again.

“Touch him again, and I’ll toss you out myself,” John said darkly from the kitchen doorway, skin reflecting his tone as an extremely angry maroon color. Lestrade only rarely ever saw John turn that dark of a color but he certainly knew what it meant. Mycroft was overstepping bounds. even though the brown spot was already fading from Sherlock’s skin, the fact that it was there at all was enraging to John as Sherlock’s mate. Mollisians didn’t touch like Mycroft just had. Sure, they brushed each other like humans do sometimes in passing, but as a whole they tried not to whenever necessary and to forcefully touch another like Mycroft had, hard enough to transfer color, it just wasn’t done.

Mycroft physically turned to look at the seething mass that was John, all tentacles and a mouth trying to stretch himself upwards and become an intimidating shape to the literally larger Mollisian. They seemed to stare each other down for a long while, as though they were having a silent conversation. Sherlock settled down out of his own irritated shape behind them, though he didn’t try to return to his chair.

“I must go and start cleaning up the mess you’ve made, Sherlock. Leave this building and I _will_ have you chipped and locked up. I’ll send you back to the home planet if I have to,” Mycroft threatened, drawing his posture even straighter.

“ _Yes_ , brother of mine,” replied Sherlock from his place behind his chair, his voice colored with venomous loathing.

Mycroft turned and made to leave, but seemed to only just realize that Lestrade was even there, standing in the doorway. He paused, standing in front of Lestrade for a moment, mask of a face blank even as Lestrade saw his color lighten closer to its natural indigo.

“Apologies dear,” Mycroft said quietly. He didn’t lean in to kiss Lestrade, or anything so overtly human. He stepped nearer, as though he were trying to pass by him, and a small purplish tendril reached out and firmly wrapped itself around Lestrade’s hand. 

Lestrade knew what the gesture meant, Mollisians and their touches. A firm hold like the one Mycroft gave him then was nearly like a human kiss on the lips. There were stories of some of the first human-mollisian contact, and the introduction of a handshake had seemed scandalous to them until they learned that humans didn’t transfer emotions or thoughts or colors through touch like they did. Lestrade knew what a Mollisian handshake felt like - a barely there, limp, meeting of human skin and soft appendage. This was not it.

The touch was fleeting, Mycroft only grabbing a bit of physical contact and a brief emotional reading on Lestrade before he parted. Without another word he left. Mycroft didn’t need to turn, Lestrade knew. Mollisian’s skin was their ‘eye’ essentially, they had no need to physically turn their humanoid necks. He was sure Mycroft’s focus was on them though even as his back was to them descending the stairs.

Lestrade didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, though, and so when he looked back at John he’d missed the spiney scarlet form shrink back down and squidge over towards Sherlock. Sherlock had slithered back onto his chair, pooling in the center of it and just sitting still like a massive dollop of honey with a single discolored spot. John reached out a tendril from his mass and slowly gently nudged Sherlock with it. Sherlock’s form shook in a ripple and didn’t reciprocate the touch at first, but after a moment he moved towards John. Knowing what Lestrade knew about the whole touching thing, he was tempted to look away, giving the pair privacy.

“Er, I’ll be back tomorrow,” Lestrade said lamely. The noise seemed to startle John who quickly put a little space between him and Sherlock. “Got some paperwork that needs filling out,” he added.

John’s mouth formed again, “not going anywhere soon, apologies,” John replied, the bulk of him shifting to bump Sherlock.

“Not apologizing,” said a very sulky baritone. Lestrade sighed; he’d take what he could out of the grumpy honey lump. 

“Just stay inside for a bit, yeah?” He asked, turning to follow Mycroft’s path out. “I worry about your safety is all, I’d rather not see one of you on the next news headline in trouble or dead,” he said solemnly, finally taking his leave and letting the pair settle together, knowing John was probably still angry at his core even if it wasn’t so blatant on his surface anymore.

Even without the human in the room John still kept a little space between his and Sherlock’s skins. The brief gentle contact he’d made had already shared plenty of stunned hurt over Mycroft’s sudden prodding: a smidge of genuine confusion over what he’d done wrong, twined with a large portion of his mate’s trademark petulance over being punished for helping, even though Sherlock had certainly ‘helped’ in the wrong way. Underneath all the negatives that made his mate’s skin sour and turn the shade of an oversized slime mold was a shimmer of happiness that John was touching _him_. It was almost always there during their contact, but just in that moment it transferred a bit more powerfully, driven by an odd niggling anxiety that maybe John would never touch him again.

With that thought John inched a little closer to Sherlock, finally reconnecting them with a slow pressing together. Sherlock’s swirl of emotions came rolling across the touch instantly; he physically pushed back, like a cat into a petting hand.

“I’m still mad at you,” John’s thought spoke through their connection; to anyone else they still looked like a pair of smushed together jellies.

“Forgiveness, John?” Sherlock’s mind replied quietly. His body burrowed underneath John’s slightly, a submissive motion even though the thought carried little to no color of it. Forgiveness asked for with the emotion of expectation, underlined with genuine want for the thing. 

John shifted away again, with a grumpy ripple of his skin, going back towards the kitchen and his angrily made tea, leaving Sherlock with a wide orange splotch along one side. 

“Understand... I love you, but you must understand why I’m angry with you right now,” John spoke aloud, grabbing both mugs of lukewarm tea from the counter and coming back to sit in his chair. An appendage set Sherlock’s mug down on the floor next to him. Sherlock didn’t form a mouth to reply, just shifted and settled quietly into the dip in his chair.

John watched as Sherlock extended a yellow tendril and draped it into the offered mug. The level of the amber liquid descended after a moment and the darker fluid visibly traveled up the finger of a tentacle before disappearing into the translucency of Sherlock’s mass. Of course he knew Sherlock could maintain the ‘silent treatment’ for days on end, but he could already tell it wouldn’t come to that. What Sherlock lacked in the emotional maturity department John made up for in spades, and he knew Sherlock didn’t like it when John was upset.

The pair sat quietly for a while, absorbing their tea. The large smooch of orange on Sherlock’s side remained in place whereas the brown discolored spot had already faded away. A primitive side of John glowed with joy at the fact that Sherlock kept the color marking. 

He suddenly shivered all over in a sort of laugh, whole form scrunching a little as he remembered gleefully the first time Sherlock had appeared at a crime scene skin colored completely in a brilliant bright orange. Lestrade’s first reaction had been to worry that Sherlock might be ill, having not become close with Mycroft yet. The human had changed colors quite spectacularly in a blush as Sherlock bluntly told him he’d just recently had intercourse with John. John, standing nearby, had turned an impossibly brighter shade of reddish-orange, that same primitive side proud of the public marking, even though a small irritated spike sprang up at Sherlock’s candor. Lestrade had mentioned that the pair of them looked like a living tequila sunrise, the bright yellow and red pair of them sitting next to each other mingling to make orange. An audible huff brought him back to the present and there sat Sherlock, tea finished.

“You are laughing,” Sherlock said, a suspicious note to his voice. John could almost hear the human-like squinted eyes and accusation in the statement.

“Remembering,”John replied, glad that Sherlock broke the silence.

“You are angry at me.” 

“I can be angry with you and still laugh at memories.”

“That’s contradictory.”

“You’re the one being obtuse now,” John said with a grin in his voice, “act all you want, you know that I know you can feel and express more than one emotion at a time.”

“Never said I couldn’t,” Sherlock replied sulkily.

“You try though, petulant blotling,” John teased. 

“Not a blotling,” Sherlock said picking up his mug and shuffling off into the kitchen with it.

John’s skin shivered again chuckling at Sherlock even as he followed him carrying his own mug. So often Sherlock seemed to almost try to revert to that blotling stage. A small squidgy immature Mollisian. It was almost hilarious to John seeing Sherlock’s full adult mass act like one so small, a young blotling being about the size of a human hand and Sherlock being about the size of a large human beanbag chair.

“You’re laughing again,” Sherlock accused

“Imagining you as a blotling,” John admitted whole form scrunching again as he sidled up next to Sherlock at the sink.

“I was reserved and quiet,” Sherlock lied, rinsing his cup and stretching up to put it away.

“I’ve met your parents Sherlock; your mada had stories for days about her squealing, spiny, little blotling climbing on everything and disturbing the peace,” John said fondly. He bumped lightly against Sherlock as he put his mug away as well. John caught a bit of annoyance twined with affection in the small contact, and he left another slightly orange blotch on Sherlock as he pulled away. “Basically how you are now without so much squealing and fewer spines,” John added. 

Sherlock leaned towards him even as John pulled away again, as though he were magnetically pulled towards John’s skin. But John just shuffled on, going about picking up the clothes he’d scattered around the kitchen earlier. Sherlock followed, not really doing anything, just wandering after John around the kitchen, down the hall, and into their bedroom where John tossed the clothes into the hamper for cleaning. 

“Still angry with me?” Sherlock asked quietly from his place sitting in the doorway. John made a motion much like a sigh and reached out an appendage, lightly poking it against Sherlock’s skin. 

“You are feeling insecure, don’t,” John spoke with his mind, projecting the equivalent of a hug through the light touch.

“I understand, you are angry with me,” Sherlock replied, his mental voice betraying emotions his physical baritone hid. Despite all the sulky silence on the outside, on the inside he had nothing hidden and John relished being Sherlock’s mate for the opportunity it gave him to touch and feel what was really going on in his genius mind. Inside Sherlock was still a mishmash of grumpiness and affection and irritation and love and hints of insecurity about John leaving him.

John let out a mental sigh and shifted over next to Sherlock. He stretched himself to scoop around behind Sherlock and push him towards their bed, the massive mat that it was, covered in cushions and soft duvet to sink into.

“I wanted you to understand _why_ ,” John said, mental voice calm and quiet as he settled Sherlock onto the bed and followed him, John crawling over Sherlock to get to his side. John stretched his form and spooned around Sherlock, like a red candy coating over a honey drop. And then he let the more negative emotions flow, breaking the dam that held them in check. He let Sherlock see the sheer level of worry John had for him, his high protective streak that he was sure Sherlock knew about but could always use reminding of, the upset that came at thoughts of what could happen to Sherlock, and finally the anger at Sherlock for recklessly endangering himself and putting himself into situations without John where John couldn’t rescue him.

Sherlock’s skin clenched underneath him, like a human flinching under a forceful blow, but his mind was still there on the other side of their contact, listening, absorbing the outpouring of worries and fears. He relaxed again once John put the dam back, pooling out underneath John. All was quiet for a moment, just their individual minds pressed up against each other much like their bodies were. Then John felt the prickling feeling of general upset growing from Sherlock. It wasn’t anger neither was it sorrow exactly; just a general feeling like he had picked up from Humans just before they started crying. John had been told they felt it just behind their eyes at first. 

John didn’t have time to really pinpoint the specific kind of distress Sherlock was building as the larger Mollisian suddenly slid out from under him, stretching and slipping away into their mostly unused connected bathroom. He was left for a moment feeling bereft and wondering what just happened.

 _Ah_ , but he did know, _you emotionally stunted fool_ , John thought, shuffling across the bed to sit in front of the closed frosted glass door. Sherlock wasn’t making any noise. He formed up a mouth, not wishing to just barge in.

“Sherlock?” John called, curious and a tiny bit worried, “you alright Sherlock?” Suddenly John felt embarrassment, a ragged shame filled bubble that was certainly not his own rising like the blush on a human’s face, and briefly John thought by some insane stretch Sherlock was projecting emotion without touching him, but that was impossible. Then John noticed the tiny tendril of yellow slipped out from under the edge of the door to barely touch him. 

The embarrassment was for leaving John. Sherlock was definitely feeling ashamed at having fled, but John also realized he’d very much overwhelmed Sherlock with his own deluge of emotions. He didn’t really blame Sherlock for wanting to distance himself for a little bit. Even though Sherlock, like John, had been born and raised on Earth and picked up human mannerisms he was of course still Mollisian and in the face of abrupt high levels of emotional transference and physical contact he sought distance and isolation, regathering himself. Through the tiny tiny connection John had now, he felt Sherlock’s mind frantically trying to get across that he still loved John.

John grinned inwardly. “I still love you Sherlock. I’ll be here when you want to come out,” he said and John got one last sheepish feeling before the tendril pulled back under the doorframe. 

He began puttering around the flat while he waited for Sherlock, did some cleaning and neatening up, settled down to read for a bit, made another cup of less angrily made tea until he heard a door creak down the hall. Shuffling towards the noise, John saw Sherlock had opened the bathroom door and moved inside to find Sherlock flopped in the tub looking like someone had filled the bath with tree sap. 

A honey colored appendage reached out to John and John met it with a scarlet one of his own. The feelings that met him were much better than before. The embarrassment was squashed down to the back of his mind and replaced by a very apologetic mood. Sherlock wanted to wrap up John and make him happy which John replied to with his own mental push.

“I’m fine Sherlock,” he replied, as Sherlock slinked out of the tub. 

“Could be better though,” Sherlock said making the same move John had done earlier and scooping himself around behind John, pushing him out the other door into their bedroom. Sherlock pushed John onto their bed, and rather than John forming a bright red coating on honey, Sherlock formed a sweet coat over cinnamon drop John. 

John was quickly weighed down both by Sherlock’s larger mass and his mind pressing love and affection onto him. “I’m sorry John, love you,” Sherlock apologized, squeezing around John in one full bodied hugging motion.

“You’re just trying to butter me up,” John replied, relaxing under the pressure with a mental purr.

Sherlock responded by flattening himself even further over John, melting onto him as much as possible without completely encasing John inside himself. They looked rather like a jelly ravioli like this, a pale yellow exterior with a red filling. The various analogies to earth food that their physical appearance and contact looked like were not lost on John, who rippled a little pushing upwards into the blanket that was Sherlock.

“Don’t like seeing you so angry, so stressed,” Sherlock’s mind replied simply giving him another all over squeeze in response to John’s push. “Sorry, love you,” he repeated.

John knew the heavy penitent feeling wouldn’t last very long. Sherlock would bounce back to his usual self soon enough, but for now he lazed under the warm contact. Sherlock’s mind was washing over his own with soft feelings of apology and affection, joyful at John’s submission letting Sherlock touch him so thoroughly, short of getting inside of him. 

He let off a shiver at the thought. Sherlock had actually been inside of John before. Humans seemed to adore the thought on a romantic level, but for a Mollisian who had no clearly defined genitalia or orifices the concept of ‘being inside one’s partner’ did not carry the sexual connotation it had with humans, though it was no less intimate an undertaking. 

John had been wounded rather badly by a cornered murderer. A large knife had been pulled from a butcher block, a meat cleaver, they both remembered the square blade easily. The idiot had brought the cleaver down on John, splitting him open with its sharpened edge. Sherlock had immediately halted his pursuit of the criminal to take care of John. Much like a gut sliced Human, Mollisian’s do have innards, not so clearly defined like individual organs, but still something that should not be presented to air without fatal consequences. John had overheard much more offensive mouths describe his people’s insides like jam or ‘that sweet pasty stuff you get in Japanese desserts’ or any number of pie fillings.

When his scarlet skin had been split Sherlock had instantly devolved from his human form and thrown himself upon John. John’s mind was shrieking in agony both at the injury and the horrifyingly violent contact the slasher had imparted on him by grabbing him before the knife came down. Sherlock kept John’s viscera from seeping out by plastering himself to him, literally using his own skin, paled with fear, as a bandage until help came. 

He had physically pressed John’s insides back in and touched the most viscerally intimate part of him. At the time John had been too far into the realms of panic and shock to appreciate it. While they’d waited, John’s mind had helplessly babbled out that he didn’t want to die looking like a smashed jar of jam. Sherlock had told him, in an oddly soothing way, that his insides were actually not jammy or pie-like, that they’d been more like red fish roe, something fine textured, sometimes salty but sometimes sweet too. Sherlock crushed down his own fear and terror at the idea of losing John in order to press as much love onto him as possible. He’d talked John’s flailing thoughts down by the time Lestrade found them, with an ambulance following close behind.

A squeeze from Sherlock brought John’s mind back to the present.

“Have I been so awful as to make you think about that time too?” Sherlock asked with an upset tone as he clung to John.

“No,” John chuckled pushing outwards into Sherlock’s hold, “It was actually a strangely fond remembrance.” 

“How is you being sliced open a good memory at this moment?” Sherlock replied with confusion, drawing away a little bit only to have John’s skin follow him, not wishing to let even an inch of them separate.

“You’ve touched the most intimate parts of me,” John said simply, and right away he felt and mentally heard something like a gasp.

“Ah,” Sherlock’s mind bloomed with recognition.

“How funny is it that _I_ am the doctor of the two of us yet you’re the one who has kept my innards from falling out,” John said, skin rippling with another chuckle. “Not that I particularly want to see and feel your insides; I hope the reverse never happens. Patching your scratches and nicks is plenty for me.”

“I would trust you to do the same for me,” Sherlock replied, hugging tight to John again. The pair’s minds went quiet again, this time both remaining present, no wandering off to past memories. They sat quiet and content bathing in each other’s affection and warm touch, eventually dozing as the sun sank and the yellowy light of sunset colored their bedroom.

John felt Sherlock move, still covering him like a honey blanket, but he definitely felt a poke. Then another and another, less a poke more like a kneading movement. 

“Sherlock?” John’s mind reached out sluggishly, waking up a bit more.

“Massage?” Sherlock replied quietly, continuing to knead on John, making it more obvious what he was doing with each firm press and stroke. It felt like one of those odd massage chairs which a human friend had goaded him into trying ages ago. Only then it had been uncomfortable, the gears and whirring machinery feeling like a particularly rough stranger was trying to handle him. This was Sherlock, and the feel of his mate making soft circling motions along his skin made him melt with happiness.

John hadn’t realized just how warm he’d gotten until the blanket that was Sherlock shifted off of him, exposing him to the fresh air of the room. The sudden coolness made him tense, shrinking inwards for a brief moment. But Sherlock was still nearby, pressed up to his side. 

Sherlock stretched up over John, sprouting many small tentacles of appendages from his surface to reach out and touch John again. He’d decided to change up the method of contact. Rather than being one big firm pressure he became many fingers dragging along John’s skin. If John had had goosebumps he was almost certain he’d be covered in them as he let a full body shiver take him. The sensation of Sherlock dragging his many fingers across his skin, some digging in and others almost tickling, was so damn erotic he wanted to encircle Sherlock and return the pleasure. 

“Love?” Sherlock’s mind asked with the tone of a wide accompanying grin even as he pulled away most of the tentacles, leaving just a couple lightly tracing figures on John’s skin. 

“Feels very good love,” John replied lazily, small twitches and shivers crossing his form as Sherlock tickled him.

“Want to make love, love?” Sherlock asked quietly, firming up his gently stroking appendages to dig into John a little harder, gripping and plucking at him. 

John let loose a mental moan, giving in and reaching out with tendrils of his own to twine with Sherlock’s. “You know I’d love to, love,” he giggled lightly as they continued with their ‘love love’s’ and Sherlock’s mind let go a strong wave of lustful feelings in response.

John responded with his own emotional push, careful not to thrust his mind too hard against Sherlock’s and overwhelm him again. He coiled tentacles around Sherlock’s own, delicately tracing them up towards Sherlock’s main mass still stretched tall over him. Sherlock shivered hard, skin rippling all over with a mental coo of happiness. John picked up on a prick of aroused confusion from his mate as Sherlock locked up, unable to decide what to do with himself. Press himself fully onto John again or remain upright and teasing? John helped his indecisive partner by suddenly surging up and wrapping Sherlock in tendrils like a vine clinging to its trellis. 

“Want me to take control tonight?” John whispered, causing Sherlock to shiver again.

“Oh yes John,” he rubbed against the column of John wrapped around him.

John’s skin felt like it was glowing at the sheer level of arousal and excitement coloring the concession of power. He certainly had turned a brighter shade of ruddy orange, like a poppy in the sun, their colors having already mixed hours before. Sherlock’s color seemed to be running high as well, skin a lovely orangey amber color. And suddenly the vine-like contact they had wasn’t enough; John had to cover him, hold him, touch every possible inch of him, stroke him and twine their minds together.

He pushed Sherlock down, giving off a playful growl as he shuffled on top of Sherlock. Sherlock’s own emotions radiated out with excitement, not knowing what John was about to do tonight and absolutely thrilled by it.

John knew Sherlock enjoyed when he took the reins. Sherlock knew John had more experience and knowledge in this area of life and often seemed surprised when John managed to suss out a kink Sherlock didn’t even know he had or simply just brought a new thing into their sex life Sherlock hadn’t thought of. John had had partners before Sherlock. Much as it soured Sherlock’s skin to think about them he was grateful for the accumulated knowledge John brought to their relationship. John had been with humans and Mollisians, his sexual experiences spanning Earth, Mars, and Mollisia, “three planets” Watson indeed. 

“Only you now,” John’s mind supplied with a chuckle, feeling Sherlock’s mind prickle slightly at the open thoughts mentioning previous conquests during such an intimate moment. “Have had you on all three of those planets too, my dear,” John added pressing down on Sherlock and giving him a tight hug. Sherlock’s mind bloomed with joy at that.

John’s mind wandered towards thoughts of what he would like to do with Sherlock. He could bring out a toy. They had a few, mostly vibrators really, but John had certainly surprised orgasms from Sherlock with that. He dismissed the thought; he didn’t want to have to let go of Sherlock to get one. 

Ah, but Sherlock shuddered under him and John, so close to Sherlock’s open mind, got a sudden memory from Sherlock’s perspective of the first time John had brought home a vibrating toy. The vividness of the remembrance sent a flush of arousal prickling across his skin. John had learned about the joys of a good vibrator from his first human ex-girlfriend, and once he finally entered a sexual relationship with Sherlock he’d been keen to share the pleasure with him as well. That first time Sherlock had been so skeptical about the little saucer sized disk that he’d nearly pushed John off the bed in surprise before clutching the humming device closer to himself and rubbing it along his skin. John had taken over from there, showing him how much fun it was with someone else holding it and pushing him upwards into a rather spectacular orgasm. 

Sherlock continued to squirm happily underneath him as John relived the arousing memory in his mind. For Sherlock the memory was nearly as good as just bringing the toy itself out. John began to rock against Sherlock, providing as much friction as possible, further stimulating his mate’s already sensitive skin. 

“Memories are so good,” Sherlock groaned into John’s mind, wrapping his own around John’s and giving John a lovely warm blanketed feeling even though he was the one covering Sherlock. 

They pressed harder together, moving like glowing sunset waves across the bed. Sherlock’s mental moans gave away how keyed up he was simply by John being there with him and a few erotic thoughts.

“Let’s make more,” John whispered and Sherlock’s reaction was instantaneous as appendages curled outwards and around John, hugging him even tighter to him with a sensual arch of his main body.

“Ah, John, please,” Sherlock gasped holding that arc in an attempt to gain more from John, more touches, more pleasure, just more. 

John pulled away slightly, feeling the squealing pang of reluctance from Sherlock’s mind acutely even though he was still sitting atop him. 

“Shh,” he quelled his pleasure hungry mate below. John wanted to make a form, his human form. They’d played before in that form. John let go the memory of the time they’d actually had sex in public, broad daylight, in the middle of Regent’s Park. John in his human form, Sherlock in his, John had taken Sherlock’s hand and Sherlock’s mind had instantly latched to his for what he assumed was a brief mental kiss only to find John’s mind holding a plethora of flirtatious thoughts and the idea that he wanted to have Sherlock up against a tree right there. They’d wound up in the shade of a massive tree. To the outside world they just looked like an average pair of modestly dressed Mollisians standing facing each other, but a closer look would have revealed on the exterior that they were holding hands and the tall honey colored one was shivering in waves, and so was the scarlet one, just not as noticeably. John had leaned in against him like a human would for a kiss, stroked Sherlock’s hand and flooded him with love, affection, and erotic thoughts until Sherlock suddenly spiked into a climax and abruptly lost his human form altogether, leaving John shaking next to a large bright, nearly glowing, lump of Sherlock in his coat.

In the present moment Sherlock was absorbing the memory like a sponge, tentacle arms scrabbling at John to get him to cover him again, plaintive pleas of “Please, John, please,” coming from his mind. 

John remained patient and simply shifted form. He molded himself into his human shape, short, stocky, a smidge pudgy. He was well aware that he could take any form, appear as a gorgeous adonis or smouldering beauty, but John liked his average appearance and Sherlock loved it; just as John loved Sherlock’s. Although Sherlock had once lamented that he had been told his human form looked a bit strange.

“Lovely,” John said out loud, his voice breaking the silence of the room around them even though it was only a quiet, affection laden murmur. He spread his hands out across Sherlock’s surface kneading fingers into Sherlock’s mass and gathering him up in his arms as much as possible.

Sherlock surged up into him, grabbing hold of the human above him and wrapping him up easily in honey tendrils. John laughed and continued to knead his fingers into Sherlock’s skin even as Sherlock’s littlest tentacles twined around his toes and tightened around thighs. John knew Sherlock hadn’t ever been with a genuine human before, and it amused him to no end what Sherlock thought were erotic places to touch on John’s human form, even though that genius mind knew John was simply another Mollisian whose whole skin could be designated erogenous if he wanted.

“Want me to have my way with you?” John murmured, cheek pressed to Sherlock’s skin nuzzling against him. Sherlock’s mind keened a positive sound into his, the entire body below John wriggling and seeking more stimulation, anything John could give him. 

A smile curved John’s mouth. He pressed his lips to Sherlock and began suckling at him. Sherlock pushed into the contact eagerly as John let the suction go only to move a few centimeters over and start again. In humans the method brought about a hickey mark, a little bruise. There was no bruising Sherlock’s skin, but just the intimate gesture on its own sent Sherlock’s mind into a lovely tizzy and made him clutch John all the tighter both mentally and physically.

“John, John, John,” Sherlock’s mind chanted absolutely drunk on his mate. John left his mind open to him and Sherlock’s dove into that loving and eroticized place like one starved, as though just a couple nights before he had not fallen asleep to the loving caresses of his John. 

John’s mouth spread into an even wider grin as Sherlock’s mind picked up on the reminder and squeezed him closer. “Want you, more of you,” Sherlock cried, blissed out of his mind at the new throb of lust and spiraling higher; however, John wasn’t ready to give him his release yet. 

“What do you want, my dear? What about me?” John asked innocently, placing more kisses against Sherlock’s skin as it rippled and shivered beneath him. 

“You,” Sherlock’s mind pressed again. John could almost hear desperate panting behind the words even though there was no way for Sherlock’s voice to be truly out of breath. 

“Must tell me love,” John teased, using his fingertips to trace tickling patterns along the golden skin below them until little tendrils sprang up and twined themselves around the digits, tugging at them to make more contact and pressing John’s hands to the surface. “You want my fingers love?” 

“You,” Sherlock was stuck in a loop, the only words left imploring his partner to help him reach a climax. John was having too much fun teasing him though.

“Want me to rut on you with my big human cock?” John said, unable to keep the glee and laughter out of his voice even as the swell of a well endowed penis grew from between his legs prodding insistently at Sherlock below.

Sherlock’s mind gave a frustrated groan still writhing away at John, capturing the new appendage in grasping tendrils as well. John even put on a show of acting like the firm grip and pull on the newly sprouted phallus brought him any more pleasure than the small tentacles clinging to his toes and fingers already did. He let off a genuine breathy pleasure-laden moan right against Sherlock’s skin and Sherlock caught onto the flare of arousal instantly, redoubling his efforts to feel more of John. John’s toes spread and the tendrils gripped tighter between them trailing up the soles of feet and caressing ankles; the ones on John’s hands wrapped the digits and snaked around wrists and forearms. 

John let out another happy cry as Sherlock found the tiny hole at the end of his penis and did not hesitate to invade there, wriggling a thin tentacle of himself in as far as John would let him go. There were no membranes to injure like on a real human and Sherlock knew that, his mind was simply focused on touching as much of John as possible while also giving the pleasure he was clearly getting.

“Just want you, John,” Sherlock sobbed, balancing on the thin line between the pool of a blissful orgasm and a pit of completely overwhelmed discomfort. John saw the trapeze act and decided to finally take pity on his mate, giving him a gentle mental shove in the right direction towards that pool. He gathered Sherlock in his arms as best he could, giving him a good solid hug while flooding his mind with love and lust and every good feeling John could muster. 

“Come on then,” John goaded, clinging harder still as Sherlock gave a full body buck and froze in the emotional torrent. 

The pair of them looked like an art piece, there in the middle of their massive soft futon of a bed. A man carved from living carnelian being engulfed in a field of golden amber vines, like an erotic Klimt painting come to life. On the inside though, John got to be a part of the beautiful moment when Sherlock fell to pieces. Sherlock’s arousal spiked and his mind frantically skittered against John’s, a litany of profanity spilling out alongside his mate’s name. 

“Fuck John! John! Oooh fuck John!” Sherlock cried in the throes of pleasure, his grip on John’s physical form tensing and relaxing rhythmically as the waves of orgasm passed. 

John was drawn along with him. It was almost impossible not to with how deeply they had twined together. His own orgasm hit him in throbbing pulses making all his extremities clench, toes curled and hands fisted into Sherlock’s skin as he tightened around Sherlock capturing him in a hard hug. It was all a bit like experiencing a multi-staged firework exploding, a pause as the shell reached its apex, a great earth-shaking boom, followed quickly by a series of smaller intense cracks; then the echoing wave of sound afterwards in the silence. 

And all at once Sherlock suddenly sagged beneath John, his rigid grip loosening and all his tendrils dissolving back into his mass, utterly relaxed in the wake of such an intense moment. John could almost hear him panting in his mind, quiet as it had become. He followed Sherlock in his lassitude, devolving out of his humanoid shape to cover Sherlock again in a warm blanket of himself.

They lay together completely relaxed and pooling over one another, minds both glowing with residual emotions and floaty orgasmic bliss, but otherwise quiet. John could almost have sworn Sherlock had dozed off to sleep when a soft mental groan came across their still shared contact. Sherlock shifted beneath him, not much just a faint ripple, and John finally took the initiative to move. He slid partially off Sherlock, not losing contact with him, but just enough that John could pull back the nice warm duvet for them to slip under.

“Mmm, John,” He moaned almost pitifully, sounding incredibly tired, like it took all his remaining energy just to think.

“Shhh,” John replied, “still here.” Sherlock was so very sensitive after an intense orgasm, he never wanted to be parted from John in the moments afterwards. But John had started to cool and so he had to move to cover them and resume cuddling. Duvet in place, John snuggled up and around Sherlock.

The pair lay quiet for a time. John felt Sherlock’s mind regaining clarity and some energy in the wake of their exertions. Sherlock gently rippled against John, scooting infinitesimally closer into the hollow of his mass. John wrapped around him a little more, equally as gentle as he rubbed a broad appendage across Sherlock in a comforting manner.

“Such excitement my dear,” John whispered into Sherlock’s mind. “One would think you were brand new to this,” he added with a teasing light mental nudge. 

“Love you too,” Sherlock replied, sluggishly nudging back.

“Happy to indulge in a bit of human kinkiness with you, love,” John said with a grin in his voice.

“It’s not a human kink,” Sherlock’s tone went a touch toward his usual level of crabby when John missed an important detail. “It’s a you kink,” he clarified, a little softer again as he reached out appendages to hug John even closer.

“I know,” John chuckled as Sherlock squeezed him, “but you do seem to have an affinity for my human looks.” With a playful feeling John let Sherlock see a mental image of himself primping and preening like a human starlette just for Sherlock. John was immediately amused by the faint budding arousal from Sherlock’s mind at receiving John’s imagined poses.

Sherlock let off a tired mental groan however, squeezing John a little harder with a gentle scrub of his skin and a light shiver. “Not yet,” John heard the tiny tired plea from Sherlock’s side and pulled the images away, understanding that even though Sherlock found them arousing he wanted a rest. 

“I would love you even if you were shaped like a big red dog,” Sherlock murmured quietly, snuggling into John. 

John, however, arched up a little over him. “Sherlock Holmes, you did not just say you would go at it with Clifford.”

“Who is Clifford?” Sherlock replied, mind waking up further out of its lax doze with a push of confusion and possessiveness at the implication of even touching another like he did John. John was his one and only.

John picked up on Sherlock’s confusion and started to chuckle, which grew into laughter that made him physically ripple against Sherlock. “From the storybooks Sherlock,” he finally said. When Sherlock continued to radiate confusion he added “Clifford the Big Red Dog?” 

“Why would I want to have sex with an earth animal?” Sherlock said, realization dawning and a smear of disgust coloring his voice.

“But you just said--”

“I said I wanted to have you, you could be shaped like a big red sodding park bench and I’d still want you.” Sherlock wrapped around him and squeezed John back down against himself. “I love you, my John.”

John’s mental laughter softened at the declaration; of course he knew Sherlock loved him. He squeezed back, “I know dear.”

They went quiet again and John had actually thought Sherlock was drifting to sleep when that deep voice spoke quietly.

“You do know I didn’t slip under that woman’s door don’t you?” He asked softly.

For a moment John’s mind scrabbled for where the question had come from, so out of the blue. John suddenly realized he’d forgotten about the earlier events that had made him upset with Sherlock in the first place, the break in.

“No, I actually didn’t know that,” John replied voice a bit terse now that he remembered he was supposed to be angry with Sherlock still.

Sherlock’s mind shrank away from his a little, backing off now that he sensed John’s emotions flaring again, retracting his hugging form to his side of the bed as well. “I didn’t,” he said.

John didn’t want Sherlock to pull back into himself just yet. He wasn’t angry with him now, just wanted to know what Sherlock wanted to tell him. “Stay calm,” he stroked lightly over Sherlock soothingly, “how about you tell me what you did?” John suggested, keeping up the loving even pressure on the side of Sherlock not pressed to him.

There was a slight pause, and John could feel that Sherlock was mentally watching him, making sure John wasn’t truly angry with him. Sherlock shuffled closer again once he seemed satisfied that John wasn’t going to slide out of the bed on him.

“I picked the lock,” he whispered as though there were others in the room who could hear his mind’s voice confessing not just John. “If they analyze the back door’s handle they’d find residue from me on it and inside the locking mechanism.”

“That’s still not good Sherlock,” John said trying to keep his voice calm and fond.

“She has murder weapons and a body somewhere in that house I know it,” Sherlock said with such assured conviction that John was certain he was right, but that didn’t make how he went about finding those things any less wrong.

“Why didn’t you tell Lestrade then, get the permits and such?” No sooner than the question had been asked and he can feel the mental equivalent of an eye roll from Sherlock.

“And give her time to stash or bin the evidence?”

“Well now she might actually do that, since she caught you snooping,” John replied and he felt Sherlock’s mood take a sharp turn downward at the thought. He felt Sherlock’s mind sinking with thoughts of what else he could have done, and it really was his fault a murderer was slipping away and how his impatience allowed for that to happen, down down down. John gave in after a minute of Sherlock sinking into a gloomy mood and squished him close again. “Love, you know I don’t like seeing you get into a funk,” he said, lightly rocking with Sherlock wrapped up in his appendages.

“She’s going to get away with it because of me, I have a right to be in a funk,” Sherlock grumbled back, John could hear the pout in his voice.

“That’s what Lestrade and Mycroft were trying to tell you earlier when you were sulking and raging like a stroppy little blotling,” John felt Sherlock glower at him for the comparison but pressed on anyway. “If you listened to them once in awhile they could actually help, too late for this one, now they just get a mess, but next time-”

“John don’t talk to me like an infant,” Sherlock interrupted, any lassitude gone as he squirmed out of John’s grip.

“Sherlock-” John’s mental voice was cut off by Sherlock separating from him completely and sulkily squidging through the door. He manifested a mouth and called “Sherlock, love, stop.” John slipped out of bed as well, following his still orange-tinted mate.

The lights were out in the rest of the flat, the fire banked down for the night. The yellowy glow of the standing lamp near the sofa flicked on and John heard the very familiar leathery crunch of weight hitting the sofa cushion. He peeked around the corner of the kitchen door to see Sherlock lying in a lump on said piece of furniture. 

“No,” said Sherlock’s irritated sounding baritone aloud. Of course Sherlock could see John’s sliver of himself peering around the edge of the door at him. John emerged fully once he’d been spotted.

“Sherlock, we were-”

He was cut off by a grumbled “No,” again as Sherlock scrunched himself tighter into the cushions of the sofa.

John stopped trying to talk, just waited for Sherlock’s form to unclench so he could maybe persuade his mate to come back to bed and they could try to discuss it again in the morning. But then the orangey tinge to Sherlock’s skin rapidly began to fade and his natural golden yellow returned and the sight made John’s mind recoil. 

That Sherlock would actually let the color disappear so soon after they’d been in contact so intimately was not a good sign. Usually Sherlock would actively carry John’s stains with him for as long as possible, like a badge of pride. John had even once heard Sherlock think, ‘these are my mate’s stains, I have a mate! Me!’ when he caught a human sat next to him on the tube curiously staring at the orange blotches on his skin. Sherlock had caught himself and quickly closed the mental door to those thoughts with an embarrassed feeling that made John chuckle at him and squish a little closer to his side in affection. 

John’s skin prickled for a moment in confused upset. He honestly hadn’t thought what he had been trying to tell Sherlock was so enraging that Sherlock would actively flush John from his skin. But as he watched Sherlock on the sofa become more and more yellow John could only surmise that it was anger at him that was fueling the change.

Sherlock’s skin prickled as well, tiny raised spines rippling across his tensed surface in a mirror of John’s. John’s own spikes only grew at the echoed visual cue. “Fine!” He shouted, “I thought you might actually be growing as a person for a moment there. Apparently I was wrong.”

When no response came it only made John angrier at Sherlock. He realized his color was darkening, his natural scarlet mixed with the orangey stains to create an ugly dark rusty color. Maybe if Sherlock cared so little about keeping John’s loving stains maybe John should let his own fade as well and so he did. And it felt horrible, like he was bleeding out through an invisible wound. John’s skin wasn’t ready to let them go and deep in his mind he really didn’t want to be rid of them either. So he was left to stew about it, frustrated that he couldn’t make himself show how angry Sherlock made him because he was too sentimental of a fool to let some color stains go.

But Sherlock seemed to see the small amount of orange fade from John’s red skin. He suddenly arched from the couch, all that tension of staying in his small tucked position making him look like he was about to spring at John. He didn’t; he remained in a spiny arch suspended over his mate, shaking and making angry serpentine motions to see all around John as though he were checking to see how much color John had just let fade.

“Doesn’t feel so nice when I do it to you does it?” John asked coldly. Sherlock didn’t vocalize a reply and John let off a physical sigh, a light ripple of upset points going across his skin. He was tired of this; it seemed to happen far too often, Sherlock gets in trouble, John tries to explain why and get it through Sherlock’s thick skin that what he did was not good, they make up and the cycle begins again. 

John startled away when he felt Sherlock’s skin in extremely close proximity to his. The long snaking tentacle Sherlock had become had stopped making its lashing motions around John and had carefully come closer to touching him, still shaking like a leaf. John got a faint whisper of Sherlock’s thoughts, an unexpectedly soft, “John?” 

“No,” John growled shifting closer to the doorway, “no, stop it, we do this every damn time Sherlock!” That seemed to get Sherlock’s attention. He shrank back down, spines disappearing and color starting to actually pale. He became a lump on the sofa again and finally a mouth formed. 

“What?” Sherlock asked quietly, voice betraying a level of confusion at John’s words.

“Every time you get into trouble, you have a fit, you act like you’re sorry, like you finally understand, and then you do this, you turn into a sulking pissy blotling rather than listen to your friends, rather than listen to me your own damn mate!” John let his anger finally go, he’d been keeping it checked since even before the crime scene, since he’d learned where Sherlock even was. “Who fucking loves you!” John spat out, and then there was stunned silence in the flat. Sherlock didn’t talk, just sat there and continued shaking, skin color rapidly nearing the shade of lemon pulp. 

“And now I’m questioning why.” John mumbled, “You don’t seem to understand why we worry about you, why I don’t want to find you dead one day because you got reckless. I know there’s a caring part of you somewhere in there, I’ve seen your mind, I’ve buried myself in there. You’ve shown me your mind palace and I am there, so are our friends. But then you do shit like this, don’t listen, don’t try to understand…” John trailed off, he was upsetting himself just by talking; it was word vomit of the worst and most hurtful kind. He knew Sherlock had insecurities about John leaving him, even after all the years they’d been together, and the words that were dribbling out of his human mouth sounded like they could be an admission that John was looking to do so.

“John?” Sherlock’s voice held a fearful tremor this time and it hurt John to hear it there.

John pressed himself to the door, turning the handle and popping it open with a small creak. “I need to go out, need some air,” John said. There was a small tremor in his own voice now and it made him even more worried about what he’d just said. He needed space, room to think. “Maybe talk to Lestrade, I’ll be back,” John added, slipping out the door and down the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to PipMer for betaing this story for me.

John was halfway down the street heading towards Regent's park before he noticed it was dark out. Baker Street was quiet, not a soul around, a car or two moving on the road itself but otherwise it was the middle of the night. The air was damp threatening rain, and the only light out was the yellowy glow of streetlamps. John stopped for a moment realizing that he wasn’t even in a human form; he’d been so upset when he slammed the door at 221b that he hadn’t even taken the moment to become more than a blob squidging down the street. _Where was I even going to go?_ John asked himself. Lestrade would be in bed sleeping peacefully like most humans would be at this time of night.

The decision was completely taken out of his control quite quickly. He heard the pop of a silenced gun in the darkness and suddenly felt a very keen sting pierce his skin. John only had a moment to panic, pulling the barbed dart from his body with a very concentrated bite of pain, before whatever the device was loaded with started to kick in.

John felt like he was melting, like he was pooling along the ground like an actual liquid puddle with no restraint of skin and form. His mind began to tilt even though he wasn’t moving and a terrifying sort of vertigo took hold, his mind playing tricks on him and making him feel like he was on a rocking teeter totter. Through the disorientation John saw a tall, dark shape appear from behind a parked car, followed by another. They touched him, laid actual human skin on his, and John’s mind rebelled at the sensation. _No touching!_ his mind screamed as whoever these people were laid a combined four hands on him and started moving him, only making the vertigo worse as they rolled him and shifted him like putty along the sidewalk. John caught horrible flickers of malice and disgust through their contact making the panic he felt skyrocket while they stretched and pulled him into a container in the boot of a waiting car.

John had one last thought before he was consumed by darkness, _Mycroft said to stay home… Shit._

Whatever was in that dart never completely knocked John out, and so in the blackness of the car boot he was privy to a special sort of hell. The pair had stuffed him into a medical containment bag, that much he could tell; it wasn’t activated though. An active bag would have held him safe and secure, it would have vacuum sealed to his mass creating a protective dual layered bubble, the inner layer holding him snug. The devices were common equipment on ambulances, able to provide safe transport for an injured Mollisian, temporarily sealing major wounds while allowing movement and transport without emotion transference through physical contact. John had been stuffed into one of them before: during medical training in order to understand what it would feel like, when he’d been shot years ago, when he’d been stabbed on a case, and after the slashing incident when Sherlock had held him together and reluctantly relinquished his hold to the waiting medical bag.

This was a nightmare though; the drug continued to act on his system making him long for that comforting vacuum hold rather than the feeling like he was a raw egg running all over the floor of the car. The engine starting only added to the agony as it created vibrations that shook him and disoriented John further. When the car moved, braking, accelerating, sharp turns, anything, John felt like he’d been stuck inside a test tube and loaded into a centrifuge. The force of every twist and turn sent him pooling uncontrollably around the boot, the medical bag doing nothing to keep him properly in place, only contained and unable to escape.

John heard rain begin to patter on the metal above him and in the state he was in he would swear later that he could see the noise creating ripples of sound. But, in the far reaches of his mind under the drug John remembered that rain wasn’t good when trying to find a missing person. _If anyone is looking at all_ a horrible part of him whispered. For all John knew Sherlock was still sitting in a petulant ball at 221b and the only other hope he had would be if Mycroft had a wild hair and checked the CCTV cameras nearby.

The rain stopped abruptly as did the car itself; they’d reached wherever they were going. John heard the murmur of distant voices and suddenly light was introduced to his pitch black confines as the boot was popped open. John shied away from the blinding beam of a torch like a movie monster to a brandished flame.

“This isn’t him!” shouted a woman’s voice. Hands reached in and grabbed the medical bag, pulling john part of the way out, the torch coming even closer to John’s skin making him want to just crawl back into the dark as the proximity of the brightness caused a splitting pain to radiate across his skin.

“He looked like him,” a rougher voice said, tracing the beam of light all over John, leaving a shimmering ache in its path.

“Yeah he was all orangey colored when we got him,” another weaselly voice added.

“The one you were aiming for is yellow,” the woman hissed. John felt a shiver of panic surface as he realized they were talking about Sherlock. These people had been waiting to ambush Sherlock should he leave the flat. Mycroft’s warning about staying in 221b seemed more like a protective act than a punishment more than ever before.

“Yeah, but I’ve seen pictures where he’s orange too ma’am,” replied the weaselly one.

“He’s not orange!” She yelled, “I saw him earlier today. He is yellow. Does this look remotely yellow to you?” The woman snatched up a section of the bag along with some of John inside. John could almost feel her anger through the layers of plastic between them.

“No ma’am, looks like a bag of mashed up watermelon to me.” In that moment John realized he’d lost Sherlock’s color stains. Focusing hard and looking at the bit of himself in the light he saw that in the sloshy horror that was his drug induced enfeeblement, not only had his natural color paled to something indeed closer to unripe watermelon but he’d also dropped nearly all of Sherlock’s orange coloring. Only a couple small spots remained that he could detect, and it made a part of him clench in distress that he had actively tried to get rid of them only a short time ago and now they actually were gone.

“What should we do with this one then?” asked the rougher voice. The woman dropped the bag again with a face like she needed to wash her hands after indirectly handling John; she even pulled out a little bottle of sanitizer while she thought about a reply. She rubbed her hands together, gazing down at John like he was a dead goldfish in a bag that needed to be flushed down the toilet.

“Keep him for now,” she finally said. “Maybe we can use him to get Sherlock to come out.”

“Keep him?” the weaselly voice barked. “Where?”

“I don’t really care where as long as he doesn’t get free again. Stuff him in a drum, leave him in the boot, shut him up in a box for all I care,” she said with an exasperated tone as though she was having to tell these men how to do their own jobs.

“Ma’am we don’t usually keep em,” the rough voiced man said, sweeping the torch torturously over John again. If John could have formed up a mouth at all he would have begged for him to turn the damn bright light off.

“Well you’re going to for now, you can’t leave him at my home like the last one,” she snapped.

_The last one?!_ John’s mind screamed through the uncomfortable haze still plaguing him, _she’s done this before?!_ And then it clicked together. She had said she’d seen Sherlock earlier in the day. The person whose house Sherlock broke into had been a woman. John hadn’t actually seen the woman herself in the brief time he’d been at the scene to fetch Sherlock. This was her, it had to be. Which meant Sherlock had been right to some degree. John didn’t want to imagine what had happened to ‘the last one.’

“You can even have some fun with him if you want in the meantime, just don’t kill him yet,” the woman said, bringing John’s focus back to the humans talking above him. Oh god, John had read the stories, he lived with Sherlock for christ’s sake he’d been to crime scenes that involved the murders of other Mollisians. It wasn’t an easy sight to see no matter which species it was in the role of victim. He’d seen photos Sherlock brought home from cases that involved members of their species being tortured, had seen the results first hand, witnessed survivors cowering in makeshift containers so close to projecting fear that even the lightest comforting touch made John wish for a human stomach to purge, if anything to get the horrific feeling out.

And he was about to become one of them if he couldn’t escape.

He tried to focus all his energy on simply moving, on forming up into something other than a puddle in a bag, but before he could manage anything he was being stuffed back into the boot and the lid slammed closed, submerging him in darkness once more. The engine started, rattling John again and tossing him back into a lesser version of the hell from before with the motion of the car, the drug in his body starting to wear off but still present.

The second trip wasn’t remotely as long. If anything it felt like they might just be moving the car to someplace nearby as the sounds of rain never returned, meaning they never left the shelter of whatever building they were in. When they stopped again it sent John sloshing inside the medical bag still unable to form up and properly orient himself for an escape.

The two men didn’t blind him with flashlights when the boot opened again; they simply reached in and started dragging him out like fishermen dragging forth an ungainly net of prey. John hit the concrete floor hard, the dual layered plastic around him doing nothing to protect him from the impact.

“So what do we wanna do with this one?” the weaselly voice man asked above him, prodding at John with his shoe like John was some massive beached jellyfish to be poked at.

“Well, we can’t kill him,” replied the other, slamming the boot closed. John flinched at the noise.

“Gotta keep him drugged though,” the weaselly man said, when he saw John’s flicker of movement. “It's not like he can get out of the bag, but still rather not have this one being fighty.”

John knew for a fact that it wasn’t impossible to get out of a medical bag if one fought with it hard enough; they weren’t impenetrable force fields or anything quite so high tech. However, fighting his way free of one meant that he needed to be clear of whatever drug these men were using on him. John’s skin gave a faint ripple; he didn’t want to feel like he had when that first dart hit him ever again.

The pair took hold of John’s bag and together hefted him away. In that moment John realized where they were. It was a car park, an underground one going by the lack of openings with which to see out. In the darkness they were carrying him towards the one light, a single bulb like a spotlight over a door that read ‘maintenance’. The light when directly above him absolutely blinded him again and made him shrink in on himself like a hungover human would from a loud noise.

Once inside they tossed him into another container, an old large rectangular fish tank, something that would never be fit to hold water again but would serve horrifically well for a Mollisian sized coffin. The transparent sides allowed John to look at his surroundings thankfully, but there wasn’t much to see through the remaining drug fog. It was a maintenance closet, a fairly big one but still just a closet. There were shelves of things lining the walls, and a workbench. His two captors took seats on a pair of stools that creaked under their weight. Getting a look at the pair gave John no more information about them. They were both dressed plainly; the weaselly one was the shorter of the pair but otherwise they both looked like your average men off the street in jeans, button-ups, and coats. 

The fact that the pair seemed so unsuspicious was not lost on John, who had seen his fair share of criminals through Sherlock’s cases. The ones with the ugliest crimes were often the least suspect ones, people who looked average and therefore blended into society, easily darting out to strike again and fading back into the faces. The cab driver that had threatened Sherlock in their first case, a pair of syringes, one harmless saline the other a deadly poison, and no way to tell the difference, playing russian roulette with kidnapped passengers. He’d been an average face too.

The rough voiced one pulled out a smartphone and started fiddling with it while the weaselly one pulled a large toolbox from under the workbench. While they were distracted John tried to move again. He managed to grasp the feeling of control again, tentatively but at least enough to feel like he had command of his own mass again. He rippled his skin, nothing too severe to raise his captor’s suspicions, a scared pulse of tiny spines shivered across his surface.

Then a small syringe appeared in the weaselly man’s hand, brought forth with a bottle from the tool box. And John panicked. His mind screamed _NO!_ and his skin spiked out, screw the residual effect of the drug already in his system, he wasn’t taking any more of it. He lashed out, stretching the inside of the medical bag and actively fighting to get out. The larger of the pair was on top of John in an instant, discarding his phone with a muttered ‘fuck’. 

Large hands pressed John back down into the glass of the fish tank as he continued to jut out spines and spikes of himself to fend off the man. The medical bag prevented him from actually doing any damage to him though, containing his flailing as it was meant to do with a possible patient.

“Billy stick him already,” the man on top of John demanded. The threat of the syringe as ‘Billy’ quickly prepared it only made John fight all the harder. He heard the aquarium’s seams creaking around him about to break and give under his pushing. 

“I’m trying Paul, I don’t want to hit you with this shit,” Billy snapped at him brandishing the little syringe, now loaded and ready.

With a last effort John shoved upwards against Paul with all his strength, managing to push the man off of him and jump bag and all out of the tank. He rolled towards the door, just trying to get distance between himself and the pair, but John felt any energy he had rapidly dwindling after that one push. He sagged against the door, scared and barely able to produce visible ripples on his skin, pushing up against the sturdy panel of wood weakly. Without the wall of Paul on top of him though John was open for Billy, who grabbed a fistfull of him and jabbed the needle viciously through the plastic. 

John felt the harsh sting of the needle as Billy hit the plunger hard and fast, pushing more of the drug back into John’s system. The nightmarish feeling of melting returned with a vengeance almost immediately, leaving him at their mercy again.

The world listed disturbingly as John was lifted and put back in the tank again. If anything the clear glass boundaries provided a miniscule modicum of comfort to John’s panicked mind as they along with the bag gave him some sense of a skin. The larger dose of the drug made John feel like he had no skin at all. Forget melting, he felt like he was dissolving; like a strong acid had been injected into him and it was gnawing through his exterior layers. It felt like at any moment he could look down on himself and only see his innards, contained only by a membrane of plastic, before he went blind all together as the last of his skin dissolved away.

In reality John was simply lying there, his body fine from the exterior, paralyzed by the drug to the point that one could mistake him for just a fish tank full of jelly if it weren’t for an occasional minute twitch. Paul picked up his phone and sat back down on his stool; Billy took his seat as well, stashing the bottle and syringe back in its box.

John distantly heard, “Papercuts?” rumbled by a gruff voice that his mind perceived like gravel being ground into a raw wound. Another voice replied with laughter that was no where close to friendly and echoed across John’s mind like the sinister sound of an executioner readying their blade, a repetitious scraping noise. 

“Yeah, papercuts.” There was a grin with too many teeth behind the reply. Papercuts weren’t fun things, John had watched humans squirm in sympathy at the mention of the things even though they’d not had it happen to them. John’s scrambled frightened mind clamored for a reason why the voices would be so perversely happy. 

John soon found out what ‘papercuts’ meant. For the first time since he’d been captured Paul opened the medical bag and John felt cool air hit his skin. Normally the fresh air would have been a lovely feeling, a cool balm after being too warm for too long, but under the effects of the drug everything was amplified to a ludicrous degree. The air felt like someone had stuck ice against his skin. Everything was overwhelming and John had no way to escape it.

John saw the knife just before it pressed against him, a long dark metal shape in the dim light of the little maintenance closet. His mind rebelled, a litany of, _No! no, no, no, no, no, no!_ Shrieked across John’s mental landscape. He would have immediately shrunk away if he had been able to move; as it was Paul had just laid the flat of the knife against him, cold and unmoving and terrifying. John instantly was transported back to the memory of being cleaved open, a flashback remembered far far less romantically than he had just hours before with Sherlock. 

With a very well practiced movement, Paul suddenly drew the sharp edge of the blade along John’s skin. The edge bit into John’s skin, but didn’t go all the way through it; it merely left a very shallow slice about three inches long. It was enough to make John’s mind scream. It was an extremely long papercut and the pain of it intensified with the drug. What would have normally been a small irritating sting may as well have been a gutting slice as far as John’s drug addled mind was concerned. And he couldn’t move away from it as the blade pressed flat against him again, and made the same motion, again, and again, and again. Paul opened up three more of the shallow slices and John’s mind was overloaded with hysterical wailing by the time he readied to administer a fourth.

The sound of wood splintering was a far off, dull sound beyond the screaming. More light poured into the closet from the fixture that hung outside the doorway. The door was gone, in pieces against the wall ripped clean off its hinges; in its place stood an extremely angry looking Mollisian, the light diffusing in his skin and giving him a dark golden amber glow. He held no specific form, just a tall shape covered in spikes, and the moment he saw the knife in Paul’s hand the spikes only grew, the color only darkened, and the livid Mollisian dove on him.

John was aware of another human touching him and wanted nothing more than to beat the hand away. “Sherlock,” called a voice, “Sherlock get over here!” it shouted making John’s mind reel again at the proximity and volume. A mind suddenly met his own. Not the vague feelings from human touches, a whole Mollisian mind. The mind shied away after the first contact and John clung to it, begging it not to leave him to the pain and screaming again.

“John, my John,” whispered a soft baritone.

“Sherlock,” John replied weakly, clinging to his mate’s mind, wanting to wrap himself around Sherlock and hold on forever.

“Shhh, John, calm, focus on calm,”John could hear the desperate tone to Sherlock’s mental voice, like Sherlock just wanted to completely curl around John’s mind and never ever leave as well. The soft words of his mate in his mind helped to ground him fractionally. It still took much of John’s energy just to focus on Sherlock through the drug, but it was energy he would gladly expend to distract from the fresh pain of the cuts. If he let his mind drift to focus on the shallow slices he could feel the panic rising again as his addled mind felt like the cuts were deeper, that his innards should be spilling out even though they weren’t. 

Sherlock’s mind felt the disorientation and the panicky wave that came with it and cradled John’s mind all the more. John could feel the comforting warmth of his mate trying to combat the effects of the drug and bring John calm even as the world kept turning around them. Lestrade and a number of other humans were busy around them cuffing and removing John’s tormentors and beginning to inspect the small closet of space for their tools. Sherlock, on the other hand, was immovable, sitting next to the aquarium tank touching his mate.

“Sherlock we need you and John to move if you can,” Lestrade eventually said, standing next to the unmoving pair. “Is he alright?” he asked voice, carrying a definite note of concern.

“He’s been drugged, not sure what with, not deadly, psychoactive, paralytic...” Sherlock replied quietly, trailing off, barely forming a mouth to speak at all. John could tell the detective’s mind was not on figuring out what John had been drugged with, just that it wanted John comforted and safe. The genius analytical side would come later, once John was okay. 

“John can we move you, is that okay?” Sherlock’s mental voice whispered, aware of how sensitive John’s senses were and toning down his own volume for him. John felt a prickle of panic at the thought of being moved again, like he had in the car boot, the horrific feeling of leaking out like a broken egg yolk. Sherlock picked up on the memory instantly.

“I’ll hold you, there will be light, it won’t be as bad, I’m here for you,” Sherlock reassured, pressing comfort, comfort, and more comfort onto John’s frayed mind like a balm.

It took a moment for the initial panic residue of the memory to subside so that John could hear and feel Sherlock’s assurances. That he would be safe and Sherlock would be there for him.

“Can we go home?” John finally asked, mental voice shaky at best as he simply pressed his mind as close to Sherlock’s as he could in lieu of being able to physically touch him back.

Sherlock gently scooped around John, insinuating himself between John’s skin and the tank, and replied “Yes, my John.” Just as carefully Sherlock slowly began to lift John out of the aquarium. Sherlock being the bigger Mollisian certainly helped as he formed himself into an almost bowl-like shape to hold John. John never even touched the floor during the entire gradual transition and Sherlock’s deliberate movements kept the prominent sloshing feeling John felt when moved to a minimum.

“Lestrade, tell the ambulance to turn off the exterior lights, the flashing would hurt John,” John heard Sherlock’s physical baritone quietly request, and John was grateful for his mate’s recognition, noticing how bright lights caused John pain.

“Thank you love,” he whispered to Sherlock, who would most certainly hear him considering he was touching much of John’s skin and bearing his mass entirely. 

Sherlock gave John a soft hug in reply as he began to shift towards the door and out into the parking garage where an ambulance sat along with a handful of police cars all with only headlights left on to light the area. Sherlock carefully climbed into the back of the ambulance, the paramedics standing by to help if necessary. John was nearly bowled over by his own love for his mate in those moments, how gentle and careful Sherlock was being, extremely conscious of John’s condition.

“Do you need anything?” one of the paramedics asked calmly, keeping their hands to themselves seeing as it wasn’t an emergency situation now.

“Plasters,” Sherlock replied.

John felt Sherlock rotating him slightly in his grip presenting the paramedic with the bit of skin that bore the small cuts. The nice people took their time dressing the wounds properly, Sherlock holding John a little tighter as the sting of an antiseptic ricocheted around John’s mind like a shot. They applied the strips of Mollisian bandage tape to John’s skin with a modest minimum of contact, which John wished he could thank them for.

Once they’d finished Sherlock settled on the floor and proceeded to wrap himself around John as much as possible, John wanting to shrink away from the bright light inside the ambulance but still unable to.

“Blanket, please,” Sherlock said out loud leaving no room for questions. The paramedic pulled an orangey red shock blanket from a compartment and kindly laid it over the pair of them. John immediately felt better, the soft fabric thick enough to block the light but not completely, leaving him cradled in Sherlock’s embrace under the soft orange glow of their covering.

He distantly heard murmuring, Lestrade maybe, 221b was amongst the words. The doors slammed closed, startling John out of the calm stupor Sherlock had managed to lovingly lull him into; the engine turned on only making John’s unease run higher. But Sherlock was there, holding John tight as the vibrations of the vehicle’s movement came up through the floor. Sherlock helped immensely, feeding John feelings of comfort and calm and love and safety. His presence and encompassing hold along with the diffused light helped ease the terrible runny feelings he had immediately tensed in anticipation of.

They both remained quiet for the duration of their journey, Sherlock focused on keeping John calm while John rested, absorbing Sherlock’s soothings, trying to stay calm when every bump and sway of the ambulance sent his mind jittering towards panicky. Sherlock compensated for most of the rocking though, acting like a shock absorber made of honey. The ambulance finally made its last stop, after many traffic light stops that made John’s hopes rise thinking it was the one that would be the end of the trip. John heard the doors pop open nearby.

“Are you certain you don’t need to go to a hospital?” one of the paramedics asked as Sherlock carefully slid out with his cargo of John held above him.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied shortly, shuffling towards the door of 221b. John was so happy to see that black door again with its very slightly off kilter knocker. For a brief moment he’d actually thought he’d never see it again, or Sherlock. John so wished he could just move and hug Sherlock as the emotions of happiness and gratitude and love all bubbled together at once, but to no avail. He was still a thinking lump in Sherlock’s loving grip. 

Sherlock simply continued in and up the stairs to their flat. He eased John down onto the sofa cushion and John had a moment of panic as Sherlock began to slip away from him. He couldn’t reach out and cling, couldn’t hold onto Sherlock in any capacity; losing Sherlock’s mental presence scared John for a fleeting moment before Sherlock returned, pressing soothingly to his side again.

“Shush, I’m only getting the tea,” Sherlock murmured, feeling John’s unwillingness to part. He gave John a firm squeeze before he shifted away, but he never completely broke contact. He left a tiny tendril of himself pressed against John all the way from the kitchen. John knew that was a rather extreme stretch of a single bit of Sherlock’s mass and felt a twinge of guilt at his insecurities making Sherlock do that while he was also getting things from the kitchen.

“Shush,” Sherlock repeated, returning after a moment with a pair of mugs. Sherlock had let John watch over his shoulder as it were, John feeling Sherlock’s mind go through the motions of preparing tea, an almost autopilot task but one Sherlock knew John found soothing. He set the mugs down for a moment as he crawled back onto the sofa with John, blanketing himself over his paralyzed mate easily.

“Think you can drink?” Sherlock asked with the same tone John had heard mothers at the clinic use with tired sick children, that soft reassuring note that spoke of infinite patience for an exhausted little one who will be fine soon but just isn’t right now. John had used it before with Sherlock on the very rare occasions he’d come down ill. John’s mind wandered to the last time he’d seen Sherlock sweating like mad, the telltale sign of a sick mollisian. Normally tiny pores used to absorb liquids opened wide to expel it and the toxin in the form of a pale sweat that looked very much like lemon juice on Sherlock and like rosé wine on John. John had made sure to keep his poor mate hydrated, getting him into the bath sluggishly to sit and reabsorb water when he could.

A light nudge brought his mind back around to Sherlock holding the cup of warm tea. John focused hard, trying to break free of the awful drug still in his system. He barely managed a shallow ripple along his skin, a far far cry from the tendril he would need to manifest to even just drink and absorb the tea. “Sherlock,” John managed to finally speak weakly, his mental voice loaded with a massive unmade sigh and tiredness to his core.

Sherlock had a plan to get the tea into John though. John watched as Sherlock formed a bowl in his skin about the size of the mug he was holding and proceeded to pour the contents of said mug into it. He essentially made a bubble of himself around the tea, as he shifted it over John and began pressing a bit of himself down into John’s skin, mushing him like dough to form a hollow space in the top of John’s mass. If John had been able to smile he would have at the sweetness of the gesture as Sherlock carefully opened up his bubble of tea into the hollow he’d created and let John absorb it that way. The warm spot the liquid created on his skin was actually fairly soothing; the tea wasn’t scalding hot like most humans enjoyed it fresh, but Sherlock had made it just perfect for immediate Mollisian consumption. 

They sat there quietly and absorbed their tea, much like they had hours and hours before. Before the sex, before the argument, before the kidnapping they’d just sat across from each other having tea. And for a strange undefinable reason the thought made John feel the whole evening crash down on him, the aching and soreness and fear and sadness, and all the other muddled feelings swamping him. His skin started trembling slightly with the force of it. It was like a dam had broken and he just couldn’t plug it up; Sherlock only tucked him closer, setting down his mug and curling tight around John.

“I’m sorry John.” Sherlock’s voice whispered through the quagmire of emotions fogging John’s mind. If John could cry he felt like that would be a moment for it, the twist of emotions making a knotted feeling form in his center. Had he had more control over his form he would have been tensing and curling in on himself in anguish.

But there was Sherlock holding him through it, stroking gently over John’s skin as it barely vibrated. It took a long while for John to settle again and the entire time Sherlock lay over him, feeding his mind calm and comfort. He didn’t try to give him happier memories; the time for those was for after the maelstrom of emotions passed. Sherlock stuck to simple feelings to slowly bring John’s mind down out of the panicky distressed mess it had tossed itself into.

The sun was peeking through their windows and giving the living room a blue-grey morning glow by the time John finally felt coherent again. His mind felt wrung out like a sponge and he was simply exhausted. He gave an experimental twitch, hoping he could move again, and a decent ripple passed over his skin. John poked out to touch one of the discarded mugs and accidentally tipped it over, his coordination not entirely back yet. He very slowly moved to hug Sherlock, sliding broad parts of himself around him.

“Better?” Sherlock asked quietly.

“A bit, yeah, still feels a little… watery,” John couldn’t think of the right word for the odd numbing sensation that still lingered in his skin where the drug still had yet to completely wear away.

“Good,” Sherlock hugged him back, pressing a little more firmly now that he knew John wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the pressure.

“What are you sorry for?” John finally asked after a moment of quiet between them. “I’m the one that got kidnapped.”

“You do not apologize for that,” Sherlock replied with a tone that brooked no arguments. “I’m sorry you were put through that, that I drove you away from the flat at all,” he added, much softer.

“They wanted you,” John said just as quietly, like they were sharing secrets and someone might be able to hear their mental voices. Sherlock hugged a little tighter, feelings of sadness seeping across their contact.

“I’m sorry John,” Sherlock repeated sounding so very sincere, cuddling John close as possible. John could feel the fear squirming in Sherlock’s mind. Now that John was safely back at Baker Street the emotions that Sherlock had no doubt been suppressing were starting to show. Fear was one of the many that played across Sherlock’s mind, but it was certainly becoming the most prominent as time passed between them. 

“It’s okay love.” John felt like Sherlock was about to have a mild breakdown on top of him if he didn’t curb the spiral of fear. “I’m alright.”

Sherlock spread out over John, trying to cover and hold him even more. “You know I love you, right?” he asked, voice sounding upset.

“Of course I do,” John replied pressing up into Sherlock’s embrace.

“The stains, John.” He only squeezed all the tighter, as if he wanted them to just absorb into one being so that John would be safe forever. John understood then why Sherlock had asked, the fading stains earlier; John had already forgotten about it all together. The kidnapping and seeing Sherlock coming to his rescue, enraged to extremely gentle in the blink of an eye, had wiped the incident from his mind.

“We were both upset Sherlock, it’s okay now.” John rolled upwards into Sherlock, stroking along what he could reach from underneath him. “Look we’re both orange again,” John said with a reassuring smile in his voice. With all the handling and carrying and cuddling Sherlock had done for him John was well and truly orange again; Sherlock was too, with only a couple of larger blotches of honey yellow still showing through the orangey stains.

“Oh,” was Sherlock’s own small response before he rubbed up against John a little harder like a large cat giving a particularly forceful headbutt. He moved himself slightly so that he might be able to get the non-orangey parts of himself into contact with John so that he’d be properly covered in stains again. “Love you John,” he said quietly once he settled atop John again like a warm amber blanket. 

The feelings of uncertainty still lingered in Sherlock’s mind, niggling at the edges of it, but simply being allowed to essentially wallow in John and restore the stains on his skin vastly helped his mood. John was tired enough to let it be, happy to be safe, happy to have the drug out of his system, happy to be back home with Sherlock. Of course they would talk about the whole issue with the argument before the kidnapping. John didn’t look forward to it; feelings would probably run high again, they’d argue, there’d be distance. But in the end they’d be okay.

For the moment though, after a very long and stress filled night, they finally slept. Sherlock stayed covering John as they both drifted towards sleep. Whispered ‘I love you’s’ were exchanged repeatedly until John’s mind finally cycled down into exhausted sleep, followed closely by Sherlock who finally pulled an afghan across them. And there they lay on the sofa, sun streaming through the tall windows of 221b, light barely penetrating the wooly cover over them.

When they awoke some hours later after noon, Sherlock was the one up first, shuffling away to get John water and one of his favorite biscuits to eat. The movement woke John who was left under the afghan, warm and muzzy after sleep. John was able to move far better now and the residual watery, runny feelings were gone making it so much easier to absorb the offered water and completely engulf the biscuit for digestion.

“How did you know to come looking for me?” John asked, breaking the silence in the room to ask the spontaneous question while Sherlock was in the kitchen. 

“I saw it happen, through the window,” Sherlock replied, returning with a biscuit of his own. “You were going towards the park; I saw them take you, but by the time I reached the street they were getting away.”

“You brought Lestrade.” 

“I listened,” Sherlock leaned into John’s side, “sort of,” he added. “I followed till they reached the car park, saw the woman from yesterday, heard them. I called Lestrade when they went deeper down and didn’t come back.” A part of John felt a warm glow at the thought of Sherlock actually listening to him and calling before for help. Who knew what might have happened if Sherlock tried to act on his own? A little earlier and he might have been stabbed or captured and drugged alongside John. Sherlock felt the happiness through their contact and beamed himself, creating a tiny loop of giving and receiving joy between their skins.

“Thank you, dear,” John wrapped a tentacle of an arm around Sherlock hugging him further into his side. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

“That woman, I was right about her,” Sherlock said. John could almost watch his mind firing up to his usual whirling dervish genius, thinking more about the case he’d botched the day before now that John was happy and home.

“She’s killed other Mollisians, Sherlock,” John told him,

“Oh, stupid! The gardener’s uniform, I should have seen, should have noticed! Her gardens were a shamble of weeds and unkempt hydrangea, no self respecting gardener would have done such a shoddy job of upkeep. And the bruises, they weren’t the sign of an abuser, they were the marks of a fighting victim…” Sherlock trailed off with an audible gasp of clarity, all the pieces falling together to form the picture of a xenophobic murderer capturing, torturing, and killing her alien victims in the basement of her home with the help of a couple flunkies.

The morbidity of the concept twined with Sherlock’s excitement should have been repulsive, but to John it only made him love his mate all the more. The elation, the rush and joy at a clue uncovered, a puzzle solved, the satisfaction of catching a killer, and now the proof that he had indeed been right to think her a murderer to begin with.

Sherlock was on John and squeezing him tightly in a flash before he went whirling away, taking the contact high with him as he squidged hurriedly through the flat for his phone to call Lestrade.  
“Love you, dear,” John called from his place on the sofa cushion. The three words caused Sherlock’s energetic movements to pause mid reach for the phone on the kitchen table and for the coat on its hook by the door, halfway to forming up his lanky human guise.

John took the moment to get up, still a little sluggish but able to get up and move. He’d probably have a hard time maintaining a proper detailed human likeness for the day, but he’d manage. He formed up as much as he could a scarlet humanoid shape and hugged Sherlock, whose mind instantly rang with a questioning feeling of ‘what have I done for this?’ Even as he wrapped around John as well returning the hug and enjoying the physical contact with his mate as he always did.

“Let's go put a xenophobe behind bars, yeah?” John emphasized the ‘let’s’ as he leaned in to deliberately rub against Sherlock, kissing him with his barely formed mouth before separating again to allow Sherlock to resume his preparations for leaving.

“Yes, let’s,” Sherlock said, returning the loving rub as he proceeded towards the stairs with John right behind. _Yeah,_ John thought, _we’ll argue, but we’ll be okay_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, the end for this story. I will be writing more for this verse, I intend to write a sequel fic for Lestrade and Mycroft's relationship, it may be a while in making it cause life getting in the way.
> 
> As always I love getting comments and kudos, please leave some if you liked the fic. Thank you for reading and giving this one a try. :)


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